Free Z-Burbia 4: Cannibal Road by Jake Bible Page B

lot further over the years than science has.”
    “You think science hasn’t helped…” Kramer started, but stopped when Buzz smacked him in the back of the head. Hard.
    “Save your breath,” Buzz said. “I’m not stupid. I just have room in me to believe in both faith and science. Try it sometime. You’d be surprised what worlds open up to you.”
    “Damn,” I said to Melissa. “Your brother has gone all guru and shit.”
    “Cram it up your poopchute, Long Pork,” Buzz called back to me.
    “Hey! I was giving you a compliment!’ I snapped.
    “Hard to tell with you sometimes,” Buzz replied as he basically dragged Kramer back to the haul truck.
    “It is hard to tell sometimes,” Melissa said from my side.
    We got up to the haul truck and Buzz forced Kramer to climb into one of the shelters while the rest of us walked to the side of the road where Stuart stood over a bleeding man that didn’t look like he had much longer to live.
    “Not highwaymen,” Stuart said as he nudged the guy with his boot. “At least not the ones Critter was used to. From what I got out of this guy, it sounds like new gangs were starting to move across the mountains.”
    “Gangs? What gangs?” I asked.
    Critter knelt down next to the dying man and ripped open is bloody shirt. The man’s chest was scarred by all kinds of crappy tattoos and burn marks.
    “Son of a bitch,” he sighed. “I didn’t think the idiots had the balls to come this far. Thought they’d always stay on the other side of Knoxville.”
    “Care to tell the rest of us what that means?” I asked.
    Critter stood up and shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked down I-40.
    “Cannies,” he said.
    We all waited for more, but Critter just kept staring at the road ahead of us.
    “I’m going to speak for everyone and say that we’re gonna need a little more info than that,” I said.
    “Well,” Critter replied as he turned his attention on to me. “It used to be that from Knoxville to Nashville it was nothin’ but cannibal gangs. They never came this close to the mountains because I kinda made it worth their while to stay away and they didn’t know the coves and hollers like us mountain folk do.”
    “Hold on,” Stuart said. “You knew there would be cannibal gangs and didn’t bother to tell us?”
    Critter shrugged. “I’d figured they’d wiped themselves out. Can’t be no survivors left for them to eat, so they had to have turned on each other by now. I guess some got bold and moved into the mountains looking for new food sources. Gotta give them credit for makin’ it this far.”
    We all just stood there, stunned by the revelation.
    “Okay, let’s put aside the fact you are an idiot, Critter,” Stella said. “How many gangs are we talking?”
    “Don’t rightly know,” Critter said. “There were about half a dozen last time I checked, but that was a couple years back.” He held up his hands before anyone else could speak. “Now, in my defense, I did tell Lourdes and her soldier folk about them. I figured if they were still a threat that Lourdes would have sent someone to tell us. When we didn’t hear nothin’ I assumed it was all good.”
    “Or maybe Lourdes and her people ran into some trouble and couldn’t get someone back to warn us,” I said. “That’s a possibility.”
    “Nah,” Critter said. “The canny gangs ain’t smart enough to take on Lourdes. They’d be a pain in the ass, that’s for sure, but ain’t a one of them got the skills that those PCs have in their pinky fingers.”
    I looked up at the haul truck.
    “There may be someone that can shed a little more light on this situation,” I said. “Can someone help me up into the haul truck?” I waved Stumpageddon and winced at the pain in my collarbone. “Can’t quite do it myself.”
     
    ***
     
    I was sweating pretty hard, and had swallowed a ton of pride, by the time I sat down across from Kramer in one of the shelters bolted into the haul truck’s